FAO in Europe and Central Asia

Extending from Lisbon to Vladivostok and from the Arctic Circle to the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia, no region is more vast or diverse than FAO’s Europe and Central Asia region.

With 53 Member Countries and one Member Organization (the European Union), the region’s food and agriculture challenges range from cooperation on capture fisheries to improving nutrition levels, from coping with livestock diseases to getting reliable agricultural census data, from cleaning up and managing obsolete pesticides to setting up protocols to make sure food is safe to eat, from conserving crop genetic resources to expanding access to lucrative international markets.

More than half the region’s countries are members of the European Union or candidates for accession to the EU. Since 1990, many of the national economies have been transitioning to greater market orientation and private ownership of farms and agri-business. Historically, the region has been home to several “breadbasket” zones, with significant production of grains in addition to fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Hardwood and evergreen forests cover extensive parts of the region, calling for management techniques that use forest resources without using them up.